


Ferris Boyle's Day Off

by GothamRogue81



Series: Scenes from Gotham City [2]
Category: Batman - All Media Types
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-08
Updated: 2015-12-08
Packaged: 2018-05-05 16:03:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,395
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5381429
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GothamRogue81/pseuds/GothamRogue81
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Victor Fries finally meets the man responsible for his condition.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ferris Boyle's Day Off

The news had been reporting an incoming Blizzard for the last hour, but the snow was just beginning to fall. The streets began to grow wet and slushy as the snow built in layers of snowflakes that fell faster and harder as the minutes went by. Within an hour, two feet of snow had collected on the ground and the plows were frantically trying to clear the streets for people to retreat to their homes.

The view of the white blanketed city almost brought a smile to Victor’s face…ALMOST. He watched the snow fall and then looked over at the clock. “We’ll be together soon Nora,” he said out loud. The room was dark except for the blue glow cast by the cryogenic chambers light. Inside the chamber, the limp body of Nora Fries floated in place in its harness. Her head hung down, hair falling down over her face. The light was the only part of the chamber receiving power. The cyro tube was no more, and Nora Fries was now gone forever.

An icy tear trickled down Victor’s eye as he looked over at her. He lifted a gloved finger to his eye to wipe the tear, but was stopped by the glass of his helmet. The pointed finger, curled into a fist as he angrily.

 

Across the city, in the Diamond District, a black town car pulled up to the front door of GothCorp. From inside, a seemingly in shape but balding man walked across the slick stone walkway, accompanied by an associate who held an umbrella over him and opened the back door of the car when he reached it.

The two got inside and drove off. “Jeffrey, did you pick up the things I asked for?” the older man asked. 

The younger man next to him nodded. “Yes, Mr. Boyle: tickets to the theater for your daughter and son-in-law and the necklace for Mrs. Boyle. They are wrapped and under the tree as you requested,” he said.

“Very good,” Ferris Boyle replied. “That ought to shut Colleen up for a few months,” he muttered. “What do you have for me for tomorrow?”

“You have brunch with Mayor Hady to go over the proposed biogenetics facility over near the Novick Tunnel. Tomorrow is also the annual…,” Jeffrey was cut off as the car went off road and landed hard, shaking the vehicle.

Boyle saw stars and lifted his hand to the side of his aching head. It was wet and when he looked at his fingers, he saw blood. Panic began to set in as he looked around the car and saw the driver slumped over the wheel and the young man next to him was either dead or unconscious. Ferris couldn’t tell.  
He fumbled with the seatbelt and the handle of the door and managed to get it loose. He slipped and fell forward down the snow covered embankment the car had managed to wedge itself into. He pushed up with his hands, trying to get to his feet but as he did so, he heard the sound of air pressure and something crunching in the snow, like footsteps. From behind him, Jeffrey had regained consciousness and called out to him. He turned to look at the younger man just in time to see him blasted with a streamline of liquid nitrogen. He watched as the man froze in an instant, covered in frost. 

Boyle turned and looked up to see the looming figure of Mr. Freeze standing over him. Before he could cry out , Freeze slammed him with the butt of the cryo-gun and knocked him out…cold.

 

When he woke up, Ferris could only make out the blue light of the chamber through the darkness. And then he heard the ventilated breathing of Freeze through the darkness. He trembled, from fear and from the low temperature in the room.

“Hello Ferris,” Victor said in a low and ominous voice that came through the muffled speaker of the helmet like a static voice on a CB radio. “Do you remember me?”

Ferris stammered as he answered, “Vi-vi-victor. How are you old friend?” he faked a laugh.

“Friend?” Freeze asked. “Does a friend turn his back on a valuable partner? Does he take credit for work that he had nothing to do with?” The question was rhetorical, and Boyle knew this.

“Victor, I’m sorry,” Ferris stammered. “For everything!”

Freeze grabbed his throat, lifting him from his sitting position against the wall. “I don’t believe you Ferris! You’re not sorry,” he said. He pulled him close, the hydraulics in the advanced suit hissed as the pressurized with the movement. “But you will be. I assure it!”

There was a crash from above, and the ceiling in the center of the room caved in. The ice had weakened the abandoned laboratory’s structure. From out of the snowy sky, a dark figure landed behind them. 

“Let him go Freeze,” Nightwing called out.

Still holding Ferris by the throat, Freeze turned around. “Ah, I wondered which of the Bat-Boys would show up on my door step after the crash,” he said. “I’m glad it’s you….Dick,” he said.

Nightwing was puzzled. Ferris was perplexed as well. He didn’t understand what Freeze meant. He thought he was insulting the vigilante.

“Surprised?” Freeze asked. “Don’t be. I’m an intelligent man Dick. We’ve been adversaries for a long time. I simply noted how every time Bruce Wayne adopts a new child, the Batman’s allies also multiply,” he said with a sullen tone. "Just as I knew that my public adduction of Mr. Boyle would not go unnoticed by the Dark Knight and his roundtable of young wards. I wanted you here, you see. I needed one of you to bare witness to the end."

“Victor, you don’t have to do this. He’s not worth it,” Nightwing said slowly approaching.

He swung an arm around, pointing a cryo-gun at him. “You’re wrong. I need to do this,” he said angrily. “All this time, I was forced to turn to crime because of what he did to me. Everything that has happened from the moment he took her away from me, has caused nothing but pain.”

He gave Boyle’s throat a squeeze. “What if someone took your beloved Bruce Wayne away from you? Or better yet, your little Bat-Siblings? What if one day you arrived at stately Wayne Manor to find it in ruin? You have no idea what it’s like to put all your time and effort, and your blood, sweat and tears into trying to make something right and coming up empty. All that hard work was for nothing,”

“I gave much of my life to GothCorp. Not only did they take advantage of me and steal all my hard work, but they cut me off from the studies I needed to do in order to save my wife. They had the means to my end, and they denied me. And all this time, I’ve broken laws for the good of science. I’ve funded my research the only way I could, and I failed her. Time has run out. For us…and for him.”

“Victor, there’s still hope for you. I know how you must feel,” Nightwing said, trying to talk him down.

“You know nothing Richard Grayson,” he yelled. He turned the gun on Boyle and pulled the trigger. 

“Victor! No!” shouted Nightwing. The blast of Nitrogen hit the side of his head like a bullet. He was dead before he could even freeze. 

“I am sorry Nightwing,” Victor said, dropping the lifeless body on the ground. The frozen head shattering into red crystalized bits of frozen brain matter. He turned towards him, lifting his free hand and hitting a switch on the collar of the suit. The helmet flashed open and Freeze gasped hard. 

“No!” Nightwing yelled again, lunging towards him and grabbing for the switch, trying to close it back up.

Freeze grabbed his hand and held it away. “I am sorry for the pain I have caused you,” he took a breath again, “and your family, and for the things I have done to this city in the wake of my heartache.” He paused, beginning to fade. The environmental slowly took hold of him. Nightwing watched one of Batman’s most feared adversaries fade into nothingness. Finally at rest and beside his wife.


End file.
